The invention relates to a communication system operating in the asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) and having several nodes which                form a network and are coupled partly to one another and to terminals, and which        each comprise a switch and a control software at least for controlling the relevant switch and for signaling.        
Such a communication system is known from the book “ATM, Konzepte-Trends-Migration” (“ATM, Concepts-Trends-Migration”) by M. Hein and N. von der Lancken, Internat. Thomson Publ., 1997, Bonn, pp. 97 to 104. This discloses a network with several nodes and with terminals, i.e. end users, connected to certain nodes. Such a terminal may be a telephone, a PC, a workstation, a server, etc. A node comprises a switch with a control software which switches the paths in the coupling field and also serves for signaling, among other purposes.